Transcript newmanenglishsept223

Writing English
John Keenan
[email protected]
What I hope you will come away with from this session:
1. Greater understanding of what language is
2. Greater understanding of first language acquisition
3. More ability to label language
How do animals communicate?
snake
chutter
eagle
craup
lion/leopard
chirp
hyena
hum
Purr - wants/needs/gets attention
Miaow miaow miaow- call for help
MIAOW! - I want
Mia-ow (falling) - protest
Hiss - back off
animal language
Flat ears and crouch - you are the boss
Wag tail fast- I am happy
Small slow wags - what is this?
Growl - go away
Whine - help!
animal language
Species dependent
Blackbird = pink pink - there is a cat nearby
Chaffinch = tsee - I’ve ben hurt
Singing - this is my territory; I have territory so do you want to mate with me?
animal language
Screech - there is a dangerous bird
chirp - there is a non-dangerous bird
screech and upright posture - there is a ground based predator
animal language
Rubbing chin on something - one day I will eat you
Lying stretched out - I am happy
Half-raised on back legs - there is danger about
Hopping in circle with tail up - I want to mate with you
animal language
Moo - baby calf be still; baby calf come here; baby calf where are you?; I’m
not going in there; food has arrived
Calf runs with tail on back - I have just been fed
animal language
Nuzzle - go away
Ears back - go away
Nicker - hello
Snort - there is trouble about
animal language
Round dance - food is 50-80m away pointing in direction
Waggle dance - food is further away pointing in direction
Dance varies by intensity according to how much and some is handed out
Buzz is in dialect
eg
Albanian: bzzz
Bengali: bhonbhon
Japanese: bunbun
Korean: boong-boon
animal language
Whistle - that’s unusual; I am eating
Squeak - help!
animal language
Singing - mate with me
Sound identifies location, age, gender etc
What do you know?
True or false?
What is language?
What would you say language was?
‘an artificial system of signs and symbols, with rules’ Chambers cited in
Harley p.8
What is language?
Hockett 1960 16 properties
•vocal-auditory
•interchangeability of speaker/listener
•specialisation - word means the same
•semanticity -signals mean something
•openness - ability to invent
•learnability
cited in Harley p.9
Anderson 1985 added
•syntactic rules
Language
form
content
use
Language
form
content
use
phon/graphology
Syntax
semantics
pragmatics
morphology
Owens, p.19
Sign
Phoneme
Grapheme
Morpheme
Word
Denotation
Connotation
Grammar
Syntax
Noun
Verb
Adverb
Adjective
Preposition
Article
Pragmatics
Syntagm
Paradigm
What is language?
Graphology/Phonology
Phonemes - smallest unit of speech
.
Graphemes - smallest unit of written language eg alphabet
We assign meaning
What is language?
Morphology
Morphemes - smallest grammatical unit with meaning
What is language?
The word
– consists of phonemes/graphemes and morphemes
Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't
mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny
iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit
pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it
wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed
ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe
What is language?
Semantics
Words are signs
Each sign has connotation and denotation
.
What is language?
Semiotics
Ferdinand de Saussure
Language is a system of signs
A sign is the basic element of meaning
It occurs when something makes sense to us
The sign system is learned and culturally specific
What is language?
From birth the infant is an active stimulus seeker’ Owens p151
Infans - ‘not speaking’
Brain decides on which stimuli to attend to
Gestalt Theory
Jessica, age 4:
‘Say that again. I didn’t hear you. I was listening to my toast’
Owens, 2001: flyleaf
controls eye
Motor function, moving
hands etc
Wernicke’s - sees images
memory
Broca’s area encodes
speech
Speech
production
context
Pp12-13 How the Special Needs Brain Learns
30,000 neurons fit on the end of a pin
A neuron has tens of thousands of branches – dendrites
Neurons are connected by a synapse
The dendrites receive electrical impulses from other neurons
A neuron can transmit 2,500 impulses per second
Sousa, 2001: 11
100,000 neurons per square millimetre an average pixel on the screen is
representing some five million neurons and 22km of axons
Kenning P (2008) What Advertisers Can and Cannot Do with Neuroscience. International Journal of Advertising, Vol. 27, No. 3. Pp 472-3
‘the neurons of the newborn are relatively unorganised and
unspecified. Over time, the child begins to construct auditory
maps from the phonemes heard in the environment. Sounds
must be heard thousands of times before neurons are
assigned. Eventually, different clusters of neurons will respond
to each phoneme, firing when that phoneme is heard.’
Owens, 2001: 134
Schemas
the rare and beautiful anota shook its feathers and took flight
Greene p.34
True False timed
a robin is a robin
a robin is a bird
a robin is an animal
a robin is a fish
a robin has a red breast
a robin has wings
a robin has lungs
‘as new stimuli are received, the …person..tries
to fit this information into existing schemes’
Owens, 2001: 137
What else is in the schemas for the following?
Thyme
Tesco
Pizza Hut
oak
Robert De Niro
Paris Hilton
Paris
Sony
Washoe
Nim
‘the cognitive abilities of apes are broadly similar to that of very young children’
Harley p51
Not the nine-oclock news
Eliza
Men are all alike (word alike triggers clarification)
Can computers talk
IN WHAT WAY
they’re always bugging us about something (word something triggers need for specific)
CAN YOU THINK OF A SPECIFIC EXAMPLE
well, my boyfriend made me come here (unsure so repeated back with different word order)
YOUR BOYFRIEND MADE YOU COME HERE
He says I’m depressed too much of the time (negative word triggers sympathy)
I AM SORRY TO HEAR THAT YOU ARE DEPRESSED
It’s true that I am unhappy (second negative word triggers solution repsonse)
DO YOU THINK COMING HERE WILL HELP YOU NOT TO BE UNHAPPY
I need help, that much is certain (vague terms triggers clarification)
WHAT WOULD IT MEAN IF YOU GOT SOME HELP
Perhaps I could learn to get along with my mother(predetermined response to word mother)
TELL ME MORE ABOUT YOUR FAMILY
Is this language?
Weekly ‘conversation’ at Café Nerro every week
M - me
C - Café Nerro woman
C
can I get you anything to drink?
M
a large latte please
C
staying in or taking out?
M
staying in
C
any cakes or pastries?
M
a blueberry muffin/apricot croissant
C
that will be £5.20. Have you got a loyalty card?
M
no
C
would you like one?
M
no
C
sugar is on the table there
M
thankyou
Pragmatics
context
it was found that the eel was on the orange
it was found that the eel was on the axle
it was found that the eel was on the fishing rod
it was found that the eel was on the table
Matthew:
Me:
Ma:
Me:
Ma:
Me:
John
Matthew
footy
yup
7
see you there
The
government
Drugs
Drugs are
are
bad
cool
Music
Posters
Lasswell et al, 1948
Teenagers
Osgood and Schramm, 1954
Theories of language…..
How do we understand?
Who are you?
How do we acquire language?
Nobody knows
My name is….
I believe language…
My name is….
I believe language…
My name is….
I believe language…
My name is….
I believe language…
My name is….
I believe language…
My name is….
I believe language…
My name is….
I believe language…
My name is….
I believe language…
Jean Piaget
sensorimotor intelligence - up to 2 year old ‘capable of symbolic thought’
Owens, 137
language is a tool - like an object, we learn to use
language is not a specific faculty, it’s just a social/cognitive process like any other
cognitive-schemata
-4 months - 0
‘Even when in the womb a child may be able to distinguish sounds since the organs of the
ear appear to be formed about five months after conception. It is possible, for example,
that a baby learns the rhythm of its mother’s speech while still in the womb’
Blake and Moorhead, 1993: p.30
The Examiner: 1-6 months
responds to human voice
distinguishes sounds
coos vowel sounds
turns head to voice
responds vocally to voice
babbles
smiles at speaker
responds to name
varies prosody
plays peepo
discriminate phonemes owens 152
sucking
rooting -finger into cheek
blinking at flashing light
crying
coughing
sneezing
The Experimenter: 6-12 months
recognises some words inc name
imitates sounds
learns ‘no’
Follows simple cues such as bye bye
1-2 years
goes from 4-300 word vocabulary
makes short incomplete sentences
prepositions (in, on etc)
pronouns
verb endings (s, ed, ing)
determiner noun - e.g. my teddy,
noun-verb - e.g. teddy goes
verb indirect noun - e.g. look there
adjective noun - e.g. red car
Emily, age 2 -monologue, alone talking to
doll (baby)
baby no in night
cause baby crying
baby in might
baby in might
my baby no in my car
my baby in my
baby no eat supper in in in this
no eat broccoli no
so my baby have dinner
then baby get sick
baby no eat dinner
broccoli broccoli soup cabbage carrots
no baby sleeping
so why baby eat
then baby get sick
Emmy no eat dinner
broccoli soup cause
no baby sleeping
baby sleeping all night
Nelson, 1989: p.158 cited in Blake and Moorhead, 1993: p.46
3-5 years
300 to 1200 words
recounts stories
understands questions about the
environment
90% grammar acquisition
asks many, many questions
Age 6
24,000 word reception
2,600 vocabulary
Age 8
talks a lot
brags a lot
compares
Age 12
50,000 word receptive vocabulary
adult-like
Stages of Language Development
Crying Cooing
Babbling
Intonation Patterns
1-word utterances
2-word utterances
Questions and negatives
Rare or complex constructions
Mature speech
1. Sounds
Stages of Language Development
Crying Cooing
0
Babbling
6-8 months
Intonation Patterns
8-12 months
1-word utterances
1 year
2-word utterances
2 years
Questions and negatives
2.25 years
Rare or complex constructions
5 years
Mature speech
10 years
Brain size
% of adult
Birth - 25
6 months - 50
12 months - 70
24 months - 80
5 years - 90
12 years - 100
Chomsky
Pinker - ‘a visiting Martian would surely conclude that aside their
mutually unintelligible vocabularies, Earthlings speak a single language’
Pinker, 1994: p.232 cited in Harley, p.100
Universals - syntax, semantics, phonology, creation
Child: Nobody don’t like me
(Mother: No, say ‘nobody likes me’
Child: nobody don’t like me) X 8
Mother: No, now listen carefully: say ‘nobody likes me’
Child: Oh! Nobody don’t likes me
‘The child, at this point in its learning grammar, was clearly not ready to use the ‘single
negative’…Such examples suggest that language acquisition is more a matter of maturation
than imitation’
Crystal, 1992: p.234
‘ask Jabbe if the boy who is unhappy is watching Mickey Mouse’
say tur
tur
say tle
tle
say turtle
kurka
mama isn’t a boy he a girl
that’s right
18-24 months - ‘grammar explosion’
‘Colourless green ideas sleep furiously’ Chomsky
Jaberwocky
What is innate?
1. sounds
2. deep structure of noun and verb phrases
3. hypothesise and create
Syntactic Blocks
BOOK
GIVES
A
SLEEPS
NILE
BOY
GIRL
STUDENT
THE
MALEVOLENCE
TO
A
SLAVERY
PARSNIP SEETHE
ORGANISE
THE BOY (GIRL/STUDENT) GIVES A BOOK (PARSNIP) TO A GIRL (BOY/STUDENT)
ARTICLE NOUN TRANSITIVE VERB ARTICLE NOUN TRANSITIVE VERB PREPOSITION NOUN
NOUN PHRASES
The father-of-fourteen,
thrice-married, Malvernbased blind prisoner
Jesus
VERB PHRASES
won Saturday’s rollover
lottery £14 million
jackpot
wept
The pretty girl in my class can sing and dance beautifully
The pretty girl in my class can sing and dance beautifully
A ADJ N PRE PRON N AUX V V CON V ADV
‘round’
noun
verb
preposition
adjective
adverb
Vygotsky
speech and thought separate up to 3 years old
3 onwards speech and thought interdependent and thought becomes verbal.
Thought is shaped by language.
thought is inner speech and it needs words
Whorf
Language determines thought - linguistic determinism -language determines
how we think
figure 3.7 p.83 language and thought Harley
Newspeak: ‘This statement could not have been sustained by reasoned
argument because the necessary words were not available’
Appendix 1984 cited in Harley p.80
Halliday
function first
what is it that the child is making the speech sound do for her/him?
The Functions of Language
instrumental - I want
regulatory - do it
interactional - hello
personal - uniqueness that’s funny
heuristic - explore environment what’s that
imaginative - let’s pretend lion in the garden
informative - I’ve got
9-18 months Halliday 1975
Why Use Language?
Crystal inHarley p.3
1. Communicate
2. Express emotion
3. Social interaction
(4. Humour
5. Make sounds –children's games
6. Control environment - eg spells
7. Express identity eg chants)
Skinner
language is behaviour
reinforcement/negative reinforcement
look at the environment to explain the language use
Wittgenstein
Language is a game
Games have rules
We learn the rules
But, language cannot express thought.
Thought and experience are obscure
Silence is the only response to complex ideas
Choose an example of a learner
Identify a problem s/he has with language
Label the problem using linguistic terms
Explain at what point in development the problem may have arisen